Tag: Jose Marti

On May 20, the anniversary of Cuba’s 1902 declaration of independence from the U.S. after what we in the U.S. call the Spanish-American War, U.S. President Donald Trump issued the following message to the Cuban people:[1]

“The twentieth of May marks the celebration of Cuban independence won by patriots who wished for individual freedom and the right of self-determination, both of which have been tragically snuffed out by a tired Communist regime. Regardless, the brave people of Cuba continue to work—under continued oppression and extraordinarily difficult circumstances—to provide for their families and to restore human and civil rights. The names of great Cuban leaders who fought for independence, such as José Martí and Antonio Maceo, echo through history alongside names like Washington and Jefferson. The legacy of these leaders continues to inspire and encourage all peoples to remain committed to the fight for democracy and the restoration of political, economic, and religious freedoms.”

“The resilience of the Cuban people and the contributions of the Cuban-American community demand our respect. We are grateful for the many contributions in the world of literature, the arts, music, cuisine, and entrepreneurship that these communities have given us.”

“To the people of Cuba who yearn for true freedom, and to the Cuban-Americans who reside in the United States, Melania and I send our warmest wishes. On this special day, we remember the Cuban patriots who lit a flame of freedom that will never be fully extinguished as long as men and women can dream of a better tomorrow. Let us recommit ourselves to a better, freer future for the Cuban people.”

This Trump statement requires several comments.

First, under the first Cuban Constitution of 1902, the U.S. retained the right to intervene in Cuban affairs and to supervise its finances and foreign relations. Under the Platt Amendment, the U.S. leased the Guantánamo Bay naval base from Cuba. As a result, Cuba does not celebrate May 20. Indeed, for the U.S. to do so is an insult to Cuba.

During the week of May 7 the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), one of five U.N. entitles promoting economic and social development in the world, is holding its 37th biennial session, this time in Havana, Cuba.

Three important opening speeches were delivered on May 8 by Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel, ECLAC’s Executive Secretary Alicia Bárcena and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a native of Portugal. Here are highlights of these speeches.[1]

“ECLAC, which for decades has been a benchmark for economic and social knowledge in Latin America and the Caribbean, at a regional and global level, has contributed decisively to placing equity at the center of development, has shown that the region continues to be the most unequal planet, and has studied certain structural causes of the problem, which will surely be addressed in this meeting.”

“It is necessary to transform the culture of inequality, associated with the colonial past of our nations and which particularly affects the indigenous populations, people of African descent, girls and women. It is also, in our opinion, a consequence of imperialism, neoliberalism, macroeconomic policies that for decades favored the transnationals and deepened the differences: of classes, by the color of the skin, territories and urban and rural population.”

“There will also have to be serious challenges that include the slow growth of productivity, the lack of diversification of the productive structure and poor technological modernization.”

“There is no other option but to advance regional integration and development with equity, which will lead us to reverse the pyramid where, in the main countries of the region, the richest 1% of the population appropriates a huge part of the population’s riches.”

“ECLAC correctly points out, ‘inequality has not only economic, but also political, social and cultural implications’”.

“The distribution of income and wealth is the central element in closing this gap and for this, States must have access to food, work, quality education, health, and the right to education. culture and better conditions of existence.”

“While it is true that we must address, as the central theme of this meeting, ‘the inefficiency of inequality,’ the real objective must be the ‘search for equal opportunities and social justice’ and, consequently, the reduction and elimination of the growing poverty, suffered by hundreds of millions of Latin Americans and the Caribbean.”

“The recent history of the region showed that adequate public policies led to successful results of social progress and economic growth that drew tens of millions of people out of hunger, illiteracy and lack of culture, as reported by ECLAC. It would be inadmissible and cruel to attempt to impose a neoliberal wave like the one that made our peoples go back a decade.”

“It is necessary to fight to make the theme of the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030 a reality, that is, that ‘nobody is left behind’”.

“With the Paris Agreement, a path leading to confronting climate change may have begun, affecting all of us in one way or another; but in the Caribbean States these threats multiply and impose enormous strains on their economies that require special and differentiated treatment, and, at the same time, greater support, solidarity and cooperation.”

“It is essential that, when addressing the issue of inequality, we also do so with access to knowledge.”

“Information and communication technologies favor development. To reduce the gap between ‘those who have’ and ‘those who do not have”, and between rich and poor countries, it will be essential to try to eliminate the difference between ‘those who know”‘ and ‘those who do not know,’ between knowledge and the ignorance.”

“We must bet on a use of these technologies that promotes social solidarity, creates values, contributes to peace and the economic, cultural and political sustainability of our nations.”

“In the same way, the growing monopolization of the media and the attempt to impose, through them, a single thought, consumerism, manipulation of the will of people and values ​​far removed from it, obliges us to reflect and constantly analyze. the realities and aspirations of our countries.”

“For our part, despite the difficulties facing the Cuban economy, particularly due to the intensification of the blockade imposed on Cuba for almost six decades, we will continue to focus on the development goals set in order to preserve, expand and deepen our achievements.” (Emphasis added.)

“We work on the preparation of a National Plan for Economic and Social Development until 2030, whose strategic axes are intertwined with the Sustainable Development Goals, as part of the process of updating the Economic and Social Model, begun in 2011, governed by the premise inviolable not to leave any homeless citizen. We will never apply the known shock therapies that only affect the most needy.”

“In a particular way, we reiterate in this forum the commitment of Cuba with solidarity cooperation towards other countries, based on mutual respect, selfless help and complementarity. Despite shortcomings and difficulties, we will maintain this will, following the principle of sharing what we have, not what we have left.”

“We have received the presidency pro tempore of ECLAC for the period 2018-2020, and of two of its subsidiary bodies: the Committee for South-South Cooperation and the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development.”

“We do so with a high commitment and awareness of the challenges we face, focused on continuing to promote cooperation among the countries of the region in the materialization of the new 2030 Agenda. We will put our efforts in supporting ECLAC’s vocation to promote the search for a fair, equitable and inclusive world that recognizes people as the central element of sustainable development. We will strive to promote unity within diversity. . . . [while] ratifying the thesis of José Martí: ‘the good of many is preferable to the opulence of a few.’”

Cuba “is testing its own paths in the face of the brutal human costs that the imposition of an unjust blockade has imposed for more than 50 years. We evaluate it every year, as an Economic Commission, and we know that this blockade costs the Cuban people more than 130 billion dollars, at current prices, and that it has left an indelible mark on its economic structure. (Emphasis added.)

“As of 2010, ECLAC has positioned equality as a fundamental value of development and as an irreducible ethical principle and in synchrony with the growing relevance of the issue in citizen demands.”

“We have said that equality is at the center of development, because it provides policies with an ultimate foundation centered on a rights approach, with a humanistic vocation that reflects the most precious heritage of modernity. It is also a favorable condition to move towards a development model focused on closing structural gaps and technological convergence that allows us to advance to higher levels of productivity, with economic and environmental sustainability, thinking about future generations.”

“Today we take a step further and we bring you a proposal and a bet, with policy proposals that we have expressed in the document called: The inefficiency of inequality.”

“We affirm that inequality is not only unfair, but inefficient and unsustainable. We have brought empirical evidence to show this statement, why it is inefficient. Not only from the social point of view is unacceptable, but from the economic point of view is not viable for the future.”

“Why do we affirm this? Because it generates and sustains institutions that do not promote productivity or innovation, because it rewards or punishes class, ethnic or gender belonging, and because it generates a culture of privilege that reinforces these inequalities, which incorporates inequality into social relations as if it were something natural, as if it were something acceptable, and it reproduces it in time.”

“Discrimination closes opportunities and also represents the loss of learning and innovation paths favorable to productivity, especially in the discrimination of women. The glass roof that restricts the advancement of women in their careers is also a ceiling to productivity.”

“Today in our continent poverty has the face of a woman. One third of Latin American and Caribbean women do not manage to generate income and are economically dependent, and when they do, their salary is significantly lower than that of men with equal education and skills.”

“The costs of excluding institutions are many, let’s notice the great losses of potential productivity that result from the inequality of access to education and that occur in a generation and sometimes in our region are transmitted to other generations, intergenerationally, and this is especially serious in the context of the technological revolution, where the capacities . . . to absorb technical progress endogenously, are indispensable to compete and generate employment.”

“Our endemic structural heterogeneity is the factory of inequality, it has its roots in the culture of privilege, and it emerges, precisely, in that conjunction of structures with little diversification, low intensity of knowledge, and inefficient institutions. That is why we propose a path, to move from the culture of privileges to the culture of equality, to achieve these tasks that are undoubtedly associated with growth and productive diversification with innovation. But we must . . . expand our fiscal spaces to sustain financing capacity and also to protect those citizens who are going to be marginalized in the context of these profound transformations, especially in the world of work.”

“We bet on a new welfare regime, which is based on public finances that move from the current role of crisis management to one that is development-oriented, progressive and sufficient tax systems, increase in public investment, which is the most punished variable when there is a matter of fiscal consolidation, increase in public investment and social spending, to achieve just closing these structural gaps.”

“We need a macroeconomics for development, which seeks to preserve. Yes, real stability is very important . . . in those decades where it was so urgent to preserve and achieve real stability and financial stability through policies . . . that protect . . . public investment.”

“A determined struggle against corruption in the public and private sphere is required. It is sad . . . that 57% of Latin American citizens do not trust their institutions; we have to change this. That is why a mechanism is urgently needed, renewed institutions that allow greater control on the part of citizens: If paying taxes is a duty, monitoring public spending is a right. . . . [Because] no matter how hard the countries try to make a fiscal discipline, a national fiscal policy, it will be necessary to establish global fiscal rules to eradicate the transnationalization of the evasion, the tax illusion and ending the scheme of globalized fiscal privileges.”

“The increase in investment rates in Latin America remains a pending task. Notice that the levels of gross fixed-capital formation have been below the levels recorded in other regions, while Latin America has been around 20%, East Asia has reached very high levels, over 30%, reaching sometimes 40%. We can no longer ignore it, the growing gap between these two regions is closely linked to investment and innovation.”

“That is why today we want to reinforce our conviction and commitment to propose, to build together with the Member States, precisely, this road that we have to travel together, also making an accurate reading of what is happening in the present. Because it is true that we have better prospects for global growth, that there is better synchrony, more than 140 countries growing at the same time; but there are worrying contingencies and uncertainties.”

“We are also alert to trade confrontations between global economic factors, coupled with the return of more protectionist policies. We see with concern the deployment of a rapid technological revolution, which is difficult for us to keep pace and pace, while drawing potential threats to the future of work.”

“ECLAC in our region has projected for this year a growth of 2.2%. We are growing again after a couple of years of recession, and also the trade picks up slightly with better prices in raw materials; but what is a pending task . . . is regional integration.”

“We must continue to fight for greater regional integration, not only commercial but productive with integrated industries . . . in our region. This is more necessary than ever, because our region . . . is still the most unequal region in the world. All our singular richness in natural resources and human capacities still does not translate into a more dignified life for all its inhabitants.”

“In this past year more than 187 million people continue to live in poverty and, of these, 62 million in extreme poverty. [This is a] warning sign, because we are committed to eliminate poverty in all its forms by 2030. Then we have to accelerate the pace and propose a great environmental impulse that promotes industrial and technological policies that deploy the range of low-carbon productive activities such as renewable energy.”

“The region must overcome a development style that expresses environmental inefficiencies and is highly exposed to the growing impact of climate change. And the truth is that we do not have to look for the evidence very far, the recent catastrophic events show it clearly.”

“The most affected part of our region, where all of us must strongly support each other is the Caribbean, and that is precisely why at ECLAC we have made the decision that in all ECLAC sessions there will always be a session of the First Caribbean. This is fundamental, because the historical magnitude of the hurricanes Irma and María underscore the urgency to act and act collectively.” (Emphasis added.)

“The economic costs of climate change in the region, calculated by ECLAC, to 2050 are between 1.5% and 5% of regional GDP. In some Caribbean nations, in the recent disaster, this calculation even reaches figures above 100% of GDP. This is what happens to us in the region and its impacts are not linear, they affect heterogeneously in different regions, periods and differently from social groups, especially the most marginalized.”

“Therefore, it is urgent that the civilizing agenda of the 2030 Agenda has equality in the center, with an identity and domicile in Latin America and the Caribbean, that from our history, from our rich diversity, from our shared hopes and challenges common we give it its own face, our institutions and we impose the urgencies that our reality demands.”

“The 2030 Agenda outlines a way to launch a new generation of policies and institutions, a new style of development and achieve a virtuous circle of growth, equality and sustainability. We owe it to the present and future generations.”

“Decade after decade, ECLAC has been a progressive paradigm and authoritative voice of social justice in the world economy. The Commission has played a precursor role in integrating the economic, social and environmental dimensions of development. ECLAC has promoted, with perseverance and courage, a vision of development that considers equality as the driving force of growth. You at ECLAC have focused on a deeper meaning of equality, have looked beyond income, as a measure of well-being and as a decisive test of development cooperation, and have always maintained attention to equality of rights in its broadest sense, economic, social and political equality.”

“ECLAC has done everything on the basis of solid, rigorous research and delivery to share experiences that link national priorities with global deliberations.”

“Seventy years after its founding, ECLAC continues to be present where it has always been, in the first line of efforts to promote an equitable globalization, presenting empirically based policies, technical analysis and knowledge aimed at forging an economic, structural and progressive transformation .”

“This decision and this approach are now more necessary than ever before. We know the challenges facing our world. It is true that globalization has brought many benefits: more people have emerged from extreme poverty than ever before, the global middle class is greater than ever, more people have a longer and healthier life, but too many people are left behind. Women are still less likely to participate in the labor market and gender wage inequality remains a global concern.”

“Unemployment among young people reaches alarming levels, with a tragic impact on the well-being of young people, on the development possibilities of countries and even in some parts of the world with a negative impact on security.”

“Fundamental inequalities make it more difficult for people to enjoy better health, education and access to justice. These inequalities make it harder for people to earn a decent salary and live with dignity. For more than a generation, the richest 1% of the world’s income has grown twice as fast as the poorest 50%.”

“Like it or not, the increase in inequality has become the face of globalization and has generated discontent, intolerance and social instability, especially among our youth.”

“People wonder, rightly: What world is this in which a handful of men – because the richest in the world are men, in extreme wealth gender inequality also exists – accumulates the same amount of wealth as half poorest of humanity?”

“At the same time, the way we live and work is being transformed by the effect of technologies, from bioengineering to artificial intelligence and much more. But we must take advantage of the potential of the fourth industrial revolution and at the same time protect ourselves from the risks it poses. This is probably the most difficult challenge that we will have in the next two decades, making the fourth industrial revolution an origin of wellbeing and progress and not a risk that can have very negative consequences for the lives of our societies and our economies.”

“In an increasingly complex and multipolar world, we must redefine the concept of development, especially in transition regions and middle-income countries, such as those in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

“I congratulate ECLAC for partnering with the European Commission and the Development Center of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to allocate a fund of 10 million euros to countries in transition. We need a global economy that benefits everyone and creates opportunities for all. We need an equitable globalization.”

For this, . . the 2030 Agenda is our fundamental contribution. The eradication of poverty is and remains our top priority. The 2030 Agenda is our road map, and its objectives and goals are the instruments to achieve that goal of eradicating extreme poverty.”

“The objectives of Sustainable Development make clear our ambition and our commitment: to empower women, achieve productive inclusion of young people, reduce climate risk, create decent jobs, demobilize clean investments in favor of inclusive growth and offer dignity and more opportunities for everyone on a healthy planet.”

We “must support the efforts made by the countries to mobilize their internal resources; but those efforts must be accompanied by a stronger commitment on the part of the international community to combat tax evasion, money laundering and illicit financial flows.”

“The audacity of the 2020-2030 Agenda calls for equally bold changes in the work and activities of the United Nations. Our efforts to reposition the United Nations Development System are based on creating a new generation of country teams that support countries, that reinforce national leadership and promote national ownership in favor of sustainable development.”

“We are committed to creating a system that responds to demand, aimed at achieving results at scale and rendering accounts for the provision of support to make the 2020-2030 Agenda a reality. The support of ECLAC is essential to help the countries of the region to implement the Agenda and sustainable development.”

“In September 2019, I will convene a climate summit in New York, where leaders from all fields will meet to fulfill the Paris Commitments, but also to elaborate more ambitious plans for sustainable development, because the Paris Commitments do not they are enough; plans that are based on investment in a resilient and low carbon development.”

Conclusion

As is typical for occasions like this, grandiose language is used to proclaim the objectives of the organization. Whether such language is justified, only time will tell.

It was surprising to this observer to hear Executive Secretary Bárcena say anything about the U.S. embargo (blockade) of Cuba. It was even more surprising to hear her say that “the blockade costs the Cuban people more than 130 billion dollars, at current prices,” which happens to be the same amount claimed by Cuba last November in the U.N. General Assembly debate over the annual resolution against this U.S. embargo.[5]

Although the Executive Secretary said, “We [at ECLAC] evaluate it [the impact of the embargo (blockade)] “every year,” she did not provide details about the calculations or methodology that produced the amount of the alleged damages or who or what ECLAC office did that analysis. Nor did she indicate whether or not Cuban officials were involved in that ECLAC effort.

Nevertheless, Cuban officials undoubtedly were pleased to hear her make this pronouncement even though it does not constitute conclusive proof of such an amount (or any other amount). Instead, it is an another allegation that has not been subjected to U.S. (or any other) analysis, cross-examination or contrary evidence.

As this blog has suggested, both Cuba and the U.S. should agree to submit all of their damage claims against each other, including the embargo claim, for resolution to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague in the Netherlands under its Arbitration Rules 2012 before a panel of three or five arbitrators.[6]

These points regarding the alleged damages from the embargo (blockade) are notwithstanding this blogger’s consistent opposition to the embargo and urging the U.S. to end the embargo as soon as possible. It does not advance any real U.S. interest and obviously imposes some negative impact on Cuba. Moreover, the alleged damages obviously constitute a contingent liability of the U.S., and any rational actor should seek ways to reduce such a contingent liability, the easiest of which is stopping the practice.[7]

“Eighty-six-year-old Raúl Castro grabbed headlines last week when he ceded the title of president to 58-year-old civilian Miguel Diáz-Canel. Too bad this change at the top is nominal when it comes to freedom for the Cuban people.”

“Mr. Diáz-Canel is . . .[not] an independent thinker. Cubans have every reason to believe him when he says, as he did in his acceptance speech, that he is committed to preserving a police state. If Mr. Diáz-Canel wants to keep his job and privileges, human rights won’t be on his agenda.”

“Raúl still leads the Communist Party and has kept the two most powerful regime positions under his control. Col. Alejandro Castro Espín, his son, runs counterintelligence for the Interior Ministry that controls the secret police. Gen. Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Callejas, Raúl’s former son-in-law, is top dog at GAESA, the military’s holding company that owns the tourism industry, the shipping company, the airline, construction companies, auto imports and sales, the real-estate business, the banks and control of container traffic at the Port of Mariel. Ramiro Valdés, a regime enforcer, still sits on the Council of State, Cuba’s highest government body.”

. . . .

“Now Havana’s crime family has again run out of other peoples’ money. Its largest sources of hard currency are the doctors and nurses who live in poverty while Cuba “rents” them to countries around the world. Yet even this multibillion-dollar human trafficking isn’t enough to support the broken Cuban economy.”

“President Trump has reined in some of Barack Obama’s executive orders that made it easier for Americans to travel to Cuba. But the regime’s bigger problem is that investors who kick the tires on the Castro jalopy increasingly walk away. There are plenty of opportunities in emerging markets these days, and the smart money doesn’t want gangsters for partners.”

“Promises of greater economic freedom for Cubans have never materialized. Small businesses can operate as long as they are subsistence operations. But they can’t hire and the regime has again cracked down on permitting lest it lose control. Cuba’s poverty suggests something has to change. But liberalization is not in the interests of the Castro family or the military. And they’re still in charge.”

On May 6 Cuban Ambassador José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez responded to this editorial with the following letter to the Journal.

“The U.S. corporate press has always been predictable in its articles on Cuba and even more so when it comes to its editorials. Newspapers such as yours were against Cubans being free from Spanish power in the 19th century. Later on, they commended local corrupt politicians who supported the invasion—first militarily and then economically by American companies during the first half of the 20th century. Finally, those newspapers relentlessly demonized the Cuban Revolution since 1959.”

“However, I was caught off guard by the sordidness of the language used by your editorial board when referring to my country. It is the typical exercise of those who are left without arguments. There is still a financial, economic and commercial embargo imposed on Cuba intended to starve our population into submission. However, the information blockade has decreased. Americans massively travel to Cuba and 75% of them support a better relationship with our country.”

“Your renewed efforts to promote the business of the ‘dissidence’ in Cuba will not have the slightest success. History is wise and has forgotten (and will forget) the names of the annexationists of Cuban origins, but any educated human being who inhabits the earth today will be able to tell you about Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, José Martí, Antonio Maceo, Julio Antonio Mella, Ernesto Guevara and Fidel Castro; those are the names of the pro-independence figures.”

“To maintain a part of the audience you still have, before criticizing Cuba again, or any other Latin American or Caribbean country for that matter, please start by looking at yourselves in the mirror.”

Conclusion

Although I believe that U.S. policies regarding Cuba are heading the wrong direction in the Trump Administration and deplore its abandonment of many (but not all) aspects of the Obama Administration’s opening of relations with Cuba and although I have met and respect the Cuban Ambassador, this exchange or argument is unsatisfying.[3]

The Journal, given its general support of free markets and capitalism, should have (a) encouraged the Cuban government to engage in further efforts to promote the expansion of its private sector of bed-and-breakfasts, restaurants and other ventures and (b) criticized some of the Trump Administration’s policies that discourage such Cuban expansion of free enterprise and markets.

Such efforts enable Cubans to increase their financial circumstances and offer better-paying jobs to other Cubans and thereby provide the Cuban economy with desperately needed boosts. Cuba’s efforts last year to restrict such expansion were misguided out of fears of changes.

This would have forced the Cuban Ambassador into the difficult position of trying to justify the regime’s clamp-down last year of expansion of the private sector. The Ambassador in this hypothetical, however, could have argued that the Cuban Government needed to be cautious on these issues because of illegitimate U.S. efforts, overtly and covertly over many years, to promote regime change in Cuba.

The confrontation of Presidents Donald Trump and Raúl Castro at the Summit of the Americas in Peru, as anticipated in a prior post, did not happen. Each of them cancelled his trip to the Summit. Instead Cuba sent its Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodriguez, while the U.S. sent Vice President Mike Pence, and the two of them exchanged verbal insults. The Secretary of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, also leveled criticism at Cuba.

On April 13, the OAS Secretary said the governments at the Summit “cannot allow the Cuban people to continue to be oppressed by an infamous dictatorship, a dictatorship that carries the weight of decades of human rights violations … tortures and executions. We have to be faithful to fundamental ethical values. Indifference in the face of dictatorship is to break the fundamental ethical values of policy.”

Cuba since 1962 has been suspended from the OAS. Nevertheless, “the resolutions of the OAS still apply to Cuba because it is still part of the Inter-American system. A suspension does not spare it from having to meet its responsibilities. That’s why we demand democracy for Cuba and the application of the Inter American Democratic Charter.”

The Secretary General also urged those at the Summit to “continue to put pressure on the regime. Let’s not recognize the [Cuban] rules for succession that the dictatorship wants to impose on its people.” This was an endorsement of the call earlier in the week by about 30 former heads of state and government from Spain and Latin America who urged the governments at the Lima summit to refuse to recognize the new Cuba government that is scheduled to be appointed April 18 or 19.

Almagro also condemned the Cuban delegation in Lima for an outburst of screams and slogans on Thursday that forced him and civil society activists to move a meeting to a closed-off hall. The Cuban delegates shouted “liar” at Almagro and “down with the worms” at the Cuban opposition activists in the room. “Today we had a very clear example of the levels of intolerance and how they want to silence the voice of dissidents in Cuba,” said the OAS secretary general. “They brought intolerance to our system, brought the voice of hatred, the voice that certainly tries to drown other voices. They have tried to dismantle our own democracy, the functioning of the Summit of the Americas. And that we cannot allow,” Almagro said. “And we cannot allow that in Cuba. It would not be ethical.”

On April 14, Cuba Foreign Minister Rodríguez addressed the Summit. “Our America, . . ., united by a common destiny in the search for its second and definitive independence, continues being sacked, intervened and vilified by the North American imperialism that invokes the Monroe Doctrine[3] for exercise of domination and hegemony over our peoples.”

“It is a story of wars of conquest, dispossession of territories, invasions and military occupations, coups d’état and imposition of bloody dictatorships that assassinated, disappeared and tortured in the name of freedom; of rapacious plundering of our resources.

Today there is the danger of a return to the use of force, the indiscriminate imposition of unilateral coercive measures and bloody military coups.”

He continued, “Our America, with its cultures and history, the territory, the population and its resources can develop and contribute to the balance of the world, but it is the region with the most unequal distribution of income on the planet.”

“The richest 10 percent amass 71 percent of the wealth and, in two years, one percent of the population would have more than the remaining 99 percent. It lacks equitable access to education, health, employment, sanitation, electricity and drinking water.”

“We will only advance through regional integration and the development of unity within the diversity that led to the creation of CELAC [Community of Latin American and Caribbean States].”

“Recent events show that the OAS and its hysterical Secretary General are instruments of the United States.”

“Now, the objective is to reestablish imperialist domination, destroy national sovereignties with unconventional interventions, overthrow popular governments, reverse social conquests and restore, on a continental scale, wild neoliberalism. For this, the fight against corruption is used as a political weapon; prosecutors and judges act as ‘political parties’ and voters are prevented from voting for candidates with strong popular support, as is the case of the President, political prisoner, Luiz Inacio “Lula’ Da Silva whose freedom we demand.”

“It is hidden that corruption prevails among conservative politicians, parliamentarians and politicians and in electoral systems, in corrupt laws and political models, by nature, based on money, on corporate ‘special interests.’”

“People are manipulated from private monopolistic property on media and technological platforms. In electoral campaigns, there are no ethical limits: hate, division, selfishness, slander, racism, xenophobia and lies are promoted; neo-fascist tendencies proliferate and walls are promised, militarization of borders, massive deportations, even of children born in the territory itself.”

“In the hemisphere, massive, flagrant and systematic violations of civil and political human rights are increasing; and economic, social and cultural rights of hundreds of millions of human beings.”

What democracy and values ​​are spoken of here? Of those of President Lincoln or the “dream” of Martin Luther King , that would elevate the American people to whom indissoluble bonds unite us ?, Or of those of Cutting and of the supposed “anti-system” extremist conservative?

“Cuba will not accept threats or blackmail from the government of the United States. We do not want confrontation, but we will not negotiate anything of our internal affairs, nor will we yield a millimeter in our principles. In defense of independence, the Revolution and Socialism, the Cuban people have shed their blood, assumed extraordinary sacrifices and the greatest risks.”

“The progress made in recent years [2014-2016], based on absolute sovereign equality and mutual respect, which are now reversed; They showed tangible results and that civilized coexistence, within the deep differences between governments, is possible and beneficial for both.”

“The [U.S.] blockade [embargo] and financial persecution harden, cause deprivation to our people and violate human rights, but the isolation of the US government throughout the world, in American society itself and in Cuban emigration also grows with respect to that genocidal policy, obsolete and unsuccessful.”

“The international rejection of the occupation of our territory in Guantánamo by the Naval Base and the detention and torture center located in it increases equally. [The U.S.] suffers total discredit [of] the pretext to reduce the staff of the Embassies and affect the right to travel of Cubans and Americans.”

“Next April 19, in the year 150 of our independence fights, with the constitution of a new National Assembly of the Popular Power will culminate the general elections. Cubans and Cubans, especially the youngest, closely linked to the Party of the nation, founded by Martí and Fidel; together with Raúl, we will commemorate the victory against the mercenary aggression of Playa Girón [Bay of Pigs], firm, confident and optimistic.”

On April 14, as the last scheduled speaker at the Summit, Vice President Mike Pence touched on many issues. He said the following about Cuba.

A ”tired communist regime continues to impoverish its people and deny their most fundamental rights in Cuba. The Castro regime has systematically sapped the wealth of a great nation and stolen the lives of a proud people. Our administration has taken decisive action to stand with the Cuban people, and stand up to their oppressors.”

“No longer will the United States fund Cuba’s military, security and intelligence services — the core of that despotic regime. And the United States will continue to support the Cuban people as they stand and call for freedom.”

“But Cuba’s dictatorship has not only beset its own people, as we all well know — with few exceptions in this room acknowledging that. Cuba’s dictators have also sought to export their failed ideology across the wider region. And as we speak, they are aiding and abetting the corrupt dictatorship in Venezuela.”

Earlier Vice President Pence met with Rosa María Payá, daughter of the late Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá, who told him about Cuba Decide, a movement that promotes political change in Cuba through peaceful mobilization and the holding of a binding plebiscite whereby the Cuban people would decide their political system. Payá said, “What the Cuban people want is freedom, what the Cuban people want is to decide on another system.” Pence told her that he admires “enormously the courage” that her father had, “his commitment to freedom in Cuba” and her “courage” with her current “important work. ‘We are with you for the freedom of the Cuban people,’

Invoking the right of reply, Cuba Foreign Minister Rodríguez had these additional comments on April 14.

“The Vice President of the [U.S.] seems ill-informed, ignores reality, hides the truth. I want to ask Mr. Pence directly if the Monroe Doctrine guides his government or not, in his policy toward Latin America. I want to respond with words from Bolívar: ‘The United States seems destined by Providence to plague America with miseries in the name of freedom.’ I want to quote Marti: ‘What I did up to now, and I will do, is to prevent the United States from spreading through the Antilles and falling with that force more on the lands of America.’”

“I reject the insulting references to Cuba and Venezuela and the humiliating attitude for Latin America and the Caribbean that [the U.S.] has assumed. The moral vacuum of the government of the [U.S.] cannot be, it is not a reference for Latin America and the Caribbean.”

“In the last 100 years they bear the responsibility for the most brutal abuses against human rights and human dignity. All the despotic governments in the region, all without exception, have been imposed or have received support from the government of the [U.S.], including the most cruel military dictatorships. Shameful acts like Operation Condor[6] or the bloody coup d’état in Chile[7] are about the conscience of North American governments.”

“Mr. Pence’s country has been the first and the only one to use the nuclear weapon against innocent civilians. It is responsible for criminal wars and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of deaths, massacres of civilians, including children, women and the elderly, which they call collateral damage. It is responsible for acts of torture, disappearances, extrajudicial executions and kidnappings.”

“The government of the [U.S.] is the author of massive, flagrant and systematic violations of the human rights of its own African-American citizens, of Hispanics, of migrants and of minorities. It is a shame for humanity that in this country of extreme wealth there are tens and tens of millions of poor people. They have a differentiated racial pattern in their prisons and the application of the death penalty is where most judicial errors associated with the execution of people occur; It is where students are killed by guns, whose lives were sacrificed to the imperative of political lobbying, particularly in Florida”

“The government of the [U.S.] has received tens and tens of millions of dollars from the arms lobby, and a Miami senator [Marco Rubio] has received no less than 3 million for the same concept. Miami is where the political mafias are, where confessed international terrorists take refuge and is also the place of the famous electoral fraud of the year 2000.”

“Mr. Pence has not said, when he talks about corruption, that his country is the center of the laundering of financial assets of drug trafficking and the smuggling of arms to the south that destabilizes entire countries. The electoral system that has elected him and the legislature, in which he has served for a long time, is corrupt by nature, because it is supported in an unusually legal way in corporate financial contributions and the so-called Political Action Committees.”

“It is the [U.S.] government that imposes a fierce protectionism, which does not take into account that it will ruin industry, agriculture and employment throughout our region. It is where the political lobby has imposed the idea that climate change is an anti-American invention. It is the political and electoral system where there has been scandalous traffic with the private data of tens of millions of its citizens.”

“If [the U.S.] government were interested in the well-being, human rights and self-determination of Cubans, it could lift the blockade, collaborate with our international cooperation, instead of sabotaging it, and give funds to Cuban medical collaboration programs in the world and literacy programs.”

Mr. Pence “has referred insultingly to Cuba. I respond with the text of the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, signed in Havana by the Heads of State of Latin America and the Caribbean in 2014, whose principles include the inalienable right of peoples and States to freely give their own political, economic, social and cultural system.” I also respond with a paragraph of the historical document signed at the time of this event, at the José Martí International Airport in Havana, by His Holiness Pope Francis and by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill . . .:’Our fraternal encounter has taken place in Cuba, at the crossroads between North and South, East and West. From this island, symbol of the hopes of the New World and of the dramatic events of 20th century history … ‘”

“We are a few hours away from the 57th anniversary of the [Bay of Pigs] bombing of US planes at airports in Cuba, in which Cubans died in defense of our independence and sovereignty, in whose farewell to duel the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution was proclaimed, and It is surprising that, f[after] so many decades, Vice President Pence has come here to use the same language that led governments of that time to carry out this terrible event.”

“The events that have taken place in recent years [2014-2016] show that coexistence between the United States and Cuba is possible, productive and can be civilized. For that, do not wait for him, nor the delegation that now occupies the seat that he has just left, for Cuba to give up one millimeter of its principles, nor cease in its efforts to build socialism.”

Conclusion

Unfortunately these verbal skirmishes are to be expected in the Age of Trump at gatherings like the Summit. Now we all will see whether this week’s election of Cuba’s new President of the Council of State will lead to any changes in at least the rhetoric between the two countries. Also unfortunately most observers, including this blogger, do not anticipate any immediate changes.

[3] Then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on February 1, 2018, in response to a professor’s question said that U.S. citizens had “forgotten about the importance of the Monroe Doctrine and what it meant to this hemisphere and maintaining those shared values. So I think it’s as relevant today as it was the day it was written.” (See Secretary Tillerson’s Provocative Comments About Latin America, dwkcommentaries.com (Feb. 7, 2018).)

[6] Operation Condor was campaign of political repression and state terror in Latin American countries involving intelligence operations and assassination of opponents, mainly civilians, originally planned by the CIA in 1968 and officially implemented in 1975 by the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone region of South America.(Operation Condor, Wikipedia.)

[7] In 1973 Chili’s military deposed its President Salvador Allende and his government. In 2000 the U.S. Intelligence Community released a report that stated, “Although CIA did not instigate the coup that ended Allende’s government on 11 September 1973, it was aware of coup-plotting by the military, had ongoing intelligence collection relationships with some plotters, and—because CIA did not discourage the takeover and had sought to instigate a coup in 1970—probably appeared to condone it.” (1973 Chilean coup d’état, Wikipedia.)

On July 14, Raúl Castro Ruz, Army General, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee and President of the Councils of State and Ministers, addressed a session of Cuba’s legislature (the National Assembly of People’s Power).[1]

A previous post discussed his remarks about Cuba’s private sector. He also made the following comments about the history of Cuba-U.S. relations.[2]

Present Castro’s Comments

President Trump’s Policies Regarding Cuba

“This past June 16, the President of the [U.S.], Donald Trump, announced his administration’s policy toward Cuba, nothing novel for sure, since he retook a discourse and elements from the confrontational past, which showed their absolute failure for over 55 years.”

“It is evident that the U.S. President has not been well informed on the history of Cuba and its relations with the [U.S.], or on the patriotism and dignity of the Cuban people.”

Cuba-U.S. Relations, 1789-2014

“History cannot be forgotten, as they have at times suggested we do. For more than 200 years, the ties between Cuba and the [U.S.] have been marked, on the one hand, by the pretensions of the northern neighbor to dominate our country, and on the other, by the determination of Cubans to be free, independent, and sovereign.”

“Throughout the entire 19th century, invoking the doctrines and policies of Manifest Destiny, of Monroe, and the ‘ripe fruit,’ different U.S. administrations tried to take possession of Cuba, and despite the heroic struggle of the mambises,[3] they did so in 1898, with a deceitful intervention at the end of the war which for 30 years Cubans had waged for their independence, and which the U.S. troops entered as allies and then became occupiers. Negotiating with Spain behind Cuba’s back, they militarily occupied the country for four years, demobilizing the Liberation Army, dissolving the Revolutionary Cuban Party – organized, founded, and led by Martí – and imposed an appendix to the Constitution of the nascent republic, the Platt Amendment, which gave them the right to intervene in our internal affairs and establish, among others, the naval base in Guantánamo, which still today usurps part of the national territory, the return of which we will continue to demand.”

“Cuba’s neocolonial condition, which allowed the [U.S.] to exercise total control over the economic and political life of the island, frustrated, but did not annihilate, the Cuban people’s longing for freedom and independence. Exactly 60 years later, January 1, 1959, with the triumph of the Revolution led by Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro, we became definitively free and independent.”

“From that moment on, the strategic goal of U.S. policy toward Cuba has been to overthrow the Revolution. To do so, over more than five decades, they resorted to dissimilar methods: economic war, breaking diplomatic relations, armed invasion, attempts to assassinate our principal leaders, sabotage, a naval blockade, the creation and support of armed bands, state terrorism, internal subversion, the economic, commercial, financial blockade, and international isolation.”

Cuba-U.S. Relations, 2014-2017

“Ten administrations held office until President Barack Obama, in his statement of December 17, 2014, without renouncing the strategic goal, had the good sense to recognize that isolation had not worked, and that it was time for a new focus toward Cuba.”

“No one could deny that the [U.S.], in its attempts to isolate Cuba, in the end found itself profoundly isolated. The policy of hostility and blockade toward our country had become a serious obstacle to relations with Latin America and the Caribbean, and was rejected almost unanimously by the international community. Within U.S. society, growing majority opposition to this policy had developed, including among a good portion of the Cuban émigré community.”

“In the Sixth Summit of the Americas in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, in 2012, Ecuador refused to participate if Cuba was not permitted to attend, and all Latin American and Caribbean countries expressed their rejection of the blockade and Cuba’s exclusion from these events. Many countries warned that another meeting would not take place without Cuba. As such, we arrived in April 2015 – three years later – to the Seventh Summit in Panama, invited for the very first time.”

“Over the last two years, and working on the basis of respect and equality, diplomatic relations have been reestablished and progress made toward resolving pending bilateral matters, as well as cooperation on issues of mutual interest and benefit; limited modifications were made to the implementation of some aspects of the blockade. The two countries established the bases from which to work toward building a new type of relationship, demonstrating that civil coexistence is possible despite profound differences.”

“At the end of President Obama’s term in office, the blockade, the Naval Base in Guantánamo, and the regime change policy, remained in place.”

Cuba-U.S. Relations, 2017–

“The announcements made by the current U.S. President, last June 16, represent a step back in bilateral relations. This is the opinion of many people and organizations in the [U.S.] and around the world, who have overwhelmingly expressed their outright rejection of the announced changes. This sentiment was also expressed by our youth and student organizations, Cuban women, workers, campesinos, Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, intellectuals, and religious groups, on behalf of the vast majority of the nation’s citizens.”

“The U.S. government has decided to tighten the blockade by imposing new obstacles on its businesspeople to trade and invest in Cuba, and additional restrictions on its citizens to travel to the country – justifying these measures with out-dated rhetoric regarding the Cuban people’s exercise and enjoyment of human rights and democracy.”

“President Trump’s decision disregards the support of broad sectors of U.S. society, including the majority of Cuban émigrés, for lifting of the blockade and normalization of relations, and only satisfies the interests of an increasingly isolated, minority group of Cuban origin in South Florida, who insist on harming Cuba and its people for having chosen to defend, at any cost, their right to be free, independent, and sovereign.”

“Today, we reiterate the Revolutionary Government’s condemnation of measures to tighten the blockade, and reaffirm that any attempt to destroy the Revolution, whether through coercion and pressure, or the use of subtle methods, will fail.”

“We likewise reject manipulation of the issue of human rights against Cuba, which has many reasons to be proud of its achievements, and does not need to receive lessons from the [U.S.] or anyone else.”

“I wish to repeat, as I did so in the CELAC Summit held in the Dominican Republic in January of this year, that Cuba is willing to continue discussing pending bilateral issues with the [U.S.], on the basis of equality and respect for the sovereignty and independence of our country, and to continue respectful dialogue and cooperation in issues of common interest with the U.S. government.”

“Cuba and the [U.S.] can cooperate and coexist, respecting our differences and promoting everything that benefits both countries and peoples, but it should not be expected that, in order to do so, Cuba will make concessions essential to its sovereignty and independence. [N]or will it negotiate its principles or accept conditions of any kind, just as we have never done throughout the history of the Revolution.”

“Despite what the government of the [U.S.] does, or does not decide to do, we will continue advancing along the path sovereignly chosen by our people.”

Conclusion

Castro’s review of the history of these relations was succinct, fact-based, fair and necessary for the two countries’ moving forward in a positive direction.

Moreover, the two countries, as Castro said, should be “willing to continue discussing pending bilateral issues . . . on the basis of equality and respect for the sovereignty and independence of [each] country, and to continue respectful dialogue and cooperation in issues of common interest.” The two countries should be able to “cooperate and coexist, respecting our differences and promoting everything that benefits both countries and peoples.”

These principles should govern U.S. relations with Cuba and every other country in the world.

As reported in prior posts, the Trump Administration presumably has been conducting an overall review of U.S. policies regarding Cuba.[1] Although the completion of that review has not been publicly announced, there are rumors that in mid-June the Administration will be announcing a rollback of at least some of the various normalization measures announced by the Obama Administration starting on December 17, 2014.

Rumored Reversals

Even though U.S.’ Cuba policies have not had much public attention in these days of focus on revelations of Trump campaign connections with Russia, the pro-U.S.-embargo lobby apparently has used support for the Administration’s non-Cuba legislation (e.g., health care) to extract promises from Trump on rolling back the present policies. High on the list of rumored roll backs are limiting people-to-people U.S. travel to technical categories and stopping any U.S. trade or licenses that would be associated with “military” entities of the Cuban government.

This rumored reversal is happening even though all federal administration agencies support further negotiations with Cuba for better relations, especially in the areas of illegal immigration, national security, human trafficking, environment, trade, commerce, healthcare. These agencies influence have been hampered because there is no one in charge of Western Hemisphere Affairs at the State Department.

These unfortunate changes were hinted in President Trump’s statement on the May 20th so-called Cuban Independence Day when he said:[2]

“Americans and Cubans share allegiance to the principles of self-governance, dignity, and freedom. Today, we remember patriots like José Martí, who devoted himself to making Cuba an economically competitive and politically autonomous nation. He reminds us that cruel despotism cannot extinguish the flame of freedom in the hearts of Cubans, and that unjust persecution cannot tamper Cubans’ dreams for their children to live free from oppression. The Cuban people deserve a government that peacefully upholds democratic values, economic liberties, religious freedoms, and human rights, and my Administration is committed to achieving that vision.” (Emphasis added.)

Trump’s statement, not unexpectedly, was not well received in Cuba. Later the same day an “Official Note” was read on Cuban state television describing Trump’s message as “controversial” and “ridiculous,” especially on May 20, which Cuba sees as the date in 1902 when Cuba became a “Yankee neo-colony” or de facto U.S. protectorate after its status as a Spanish colony ended. More specifically May 20, 1902, was the date the Platt Amendment was added to the Cuban Constitution and 11 days after the signing of the Treaty of Paris by the U.S. and Spain ending the so-called Spanish-American War.[3] Cuba’s true Independence Day is January 1, 1959, the date the Cuban Revolution took over the government of the island.[4]

Resistance to Reversals

There, however, is resistance to any such rumored reversals.

First, the Trump Administration itself recently submitted its proposed Fiscal 2018 budget for the State Department that does not include any funds for the so-called Cuba “democracy promotion” programs by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).[5] In a letter accompanying this budget request, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the request “acknowledges that U.S. diplomacy engagement and aid programs must be more efficient and more effective, and that advancing our national security, our economic interests, and our values will remain our primary mission.” These undercover or covert USAID programs, in this blogger’s opinion, are unjustified and counterproductive and should have been cancelled a long time ago.[6]

Second, another voice for resistance within the Trump Administration is U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, who is a Trump appointee. On May 17 he appeared before the House Agriculture Committee. In response to a question by Representative Rick Crawford (Rep., AR) about his bill, Cuba Agricultural Exports Act (H.R.525), that would eliminate the U.S. requirement for Cuban cash payments upfront to purchase U.S. agricultural exports, Perdue said, “I think that’s something I would be supportive of if folks around the world need private credit to buy our products, and I’m all for that. [7]

Third, a May 24 letter to President Trump advocated the maintenance of the current U.S. policies regarding U.S. travel to Cuba. It came from a group of over 40 U.S. travel service providers that offer legal, authorized travel to Cuba. It asserted that the recent increase of such travel “has had a significant impact on our businesses by increasing our revenue and allowing us to hire more American employees. Additionally, it has helped the Cuban private sector, and fostered strong relationships between Americans and Cuban religious organizations and humanitarian programs.” The impact on Cuba’s private sector was emphasized: “Many U.S. travelers visiting Cuba stay in privately run B&Bs, dine at private restaurants, hire independent taxis and purchase goods and services from entrepreneurs. They are greatly supporting the growth of the Cuban private sector.”[8]

Fourth, another force for resistance to any such roll back is Cuban Ambassador to the U.S., José Ramón Cabañas, who along with other Cuban diplomats has been traveling to many parts of the U.S. and conveying Cuba’s best wishes for better relations with the U.S. and how such relations will benefit many Americans. I well remember the visit he and his wife made to Minneapolis in 2014 before he had the title of Ambassador and his low-key, pleasant and intelligent discussion of the many issues facing our two countries. More recently he has been to Harvard University and Montana State University and visiting mayors, governors, legislators and ordinary Americans in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Montana, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Louisiana, the Washington suburbs and Florida. At the University of Louisville, the Ambassador said, “We are ready and open to work with the Trump administration, and we believe that we can build a future of cooperation with the United States in many subjects, although we recognize that there are many areas in which we will not agree.”[9]

Conclusion

Now is the time for all U.S. supporters of normalization to engage in public advocacy of these policies and to urge their U.S. Senators and Representatives to oppose any rollback of normalization.

We also need to express our support of those who have introduced bills in this Session of Congress to end the embargo and to expand Americans’ freedom to travel to Cuba:

On March 22, U,s, President Barack Obama addressed the past and future of U.S.-Cuba relations in a lengthy and eloquent speech at Havana’s Alicia Alonso Grand Theater. The in-person audience of 1,000 included Cuban President Raúl Castro and other officials and U.S. officials and business people. By live television, the audience also included the Cuban people. {1] Below are photographs of the exterior of the Theater and of President Castro and other Cuban officials in a balcony at the Theater for the speech.

Here we will examine the speech itself, and a subsequent post will look at the reactions to the speech in Cuba and the U.S.

Summary of the Speech

Obama recognized that the two countries shared many things, including being colonized by Europeans and helped by slaves from Africa as well as patriotism and pride, love of family and hope for our children.

The last 50 years, however, have caused many disruptions in our countries’ connections. We are like two brothers who have been estranged for years even as we share the same blood.

The December 17, 2014, joint announcement of our two governments seeking restoration of normal relations was prompted by the U.S. recognition that its policies, including the embargo, were not working and needed to change and that the U.S. needed to help the Cuban people. Obama was in Cuba to end the last remnant of the Cold War and to declare that Cuba need not fear the U.S.

Even though the U.S. was not seeking to force change on Cuba, Obama stated that there were important universal rights that were as important for Cubans as they were for U.S. citizens: equality before the law; right to education, food and housing; freedom from arbitrary arrests; rights to practice their religious faith, assemble, organize, protest peacefully, criticize the government and elect their government leaders. Here is a photograph of President Obama giving the speech.

Text of the Speech

Here then is the actual text of his speech with an opening quotation from a poem by Cuba’s revered national poet, Jose Marti, that offered friendship and peace to both his friend and his enemy, “’Cultivo una rosa blanca’ [I plant a white rose]. Today, as the President of the United States of America, I offer the Cuban people el saludo de paz [the greeting of peace].”

“Havana is only 90 miles from Florida, but to get here we had to travel a great distance — over barriers of history and ideology; barriers of pain and separation. The blue waters beneath Air Force One once carried American battleships to this island — to liberate, but also to exert control over Cuba. Those waters also carried generations of Cuban revolutionaries to the United States, where they built support for their cause. And that short distance has been crossed by hundreds of thousands of Cuban exiles — on planes and makeshift rafts — who came to America in pursuit of freedom and opportunity, sometimes leaving behind everything they owned and every person that they loved.”

“Like so many people in both of our countries, my lifetime has spanned a time of isolation between us. The Cuban Revolution took place the same year that my father came to the United States from Kenya. The Bay of Pigs took place the year that I was born. The next year, the entire world held its breath, watching our two countries, as humanity came as close as we ever have to the horror of nuclear war. As the decades rolled by, our governments settled into a seemingly endless confrontation, fighting battles through proxies. In a world that remade itself time and again, one constant was the conflict between the United States and Cuba.”

“I have come here to bury the last remnant of the Cold War in the Americas. I have come here to extend the hand of friendship to the Cuban people.”

“I want to be clear: The differences between our governments over these many years are real and they are important. I’m sure President Castro would say the same thing — I know, because I’ve heard him address those differences at length. But before I discuss those issues, we also need to recognize how much we share. Because in many ways, the United States and Cuba are like two brothers who’ve been estranged for many years, even as we share the same blood.”

“We both live in a new world, colonized by Europeans. Cuba, like the United States, was built in part by slaves brought here from Africa. Like the United States, the Cuban people can trace their heritage to both slaves and slave-owners. We’ve welcomed both immigrants who came a great distance to start new lives in the Americas.”

“Over the years, our cultures have blended together. Dr. Carlos Finlay’s work in Cuba paved the way for generations of doctors, including Walter Reed, who drew on Dr. Finlay’s work to help combat Yellow Fever. Just as Marti wrote some of his most famous words in New York, Ernest Hemingway made a home in Cuba, and found inspiration in the waters of these shores. We share a national past-time — La Pelota [baseball]– and later today our players will compete on the same Havana field that Jackie Robinson played on before he made his Major League debut. And it’s said that our greatest boxer, Muhammad Ali, once paid tribute to a Cuban that he could never fight — saying that he would only be able to reach a draw with the great Cuban, Teofilo Stevenson.”

“So even as our governments became adversaries, our people continued to share these common passions, particularly as so many Cubans came to America. In Miami or Havana, you can find places to dance the Cha-Cha-Cha or the Salsa, and eat ropa vieja [shredded pork or beef]. People in both of our countries have sung along with Celia Cruz or Gloria Estefan, and now listen to reggaeton or Pitbull. Millions of our people share a common religion — a faith that I paid tribute to at the Shrine of our Lady of Charity in Miami, a peace that Cubans find in La Cachita.”

“For all of our differences, the Cuban and American people share common values in their own lives. A sense of patriotism and a sense of pride — a lot of pride. A profound love of family. A passion for our children, a commitment to their education. And that’s why I believe our grandchildren will look back on this period of isolation as an aberration, as just one chapter in a longer story of family and of friendship.”

“But we cannot, and should not, ignore the very real differences that we have — about how we organize our governments, our economies, and our societies. Cuba has a one-party system; the United States is a multi-party democracy. Cuba has a socialist economic model; the United States is an open market. Cuba has emphasized the role and rights of the state; the United States is founded upon the rights of the individual.”

“Despite these differences, on December 17th 2014, President Castro and I announced that the United States and Cuba would begin a process to normalize relations between our countries. Since then, we have established diplomatic relations and opened embassies. We’ve begun initiatives to cooperate on health and agriculture, education and law enforcement. We’ve reached agreements to restore direct flights and mail service. We’ve expanded commercial ties, and increased the capacity of Americans to travel and do business in Cuba.”

“And these changes have been welcomed, even though there are still opponents to these policies. But still, many people on both sides of this debate have asked: Why now? Why now?”

“There is one simple answer: What the United States was doing was not working. We have to have the courage to acknowledge that truth. A policy of isolation designed for the Cold War made little sense in the 21st century. The embargo was only hurting the Cuban people instead of helping them. And I’ve always believed in what Martin Luther King, Jr. called ‘the fierce urgency of now’ — we should not fear change, we should embrace it.”

“That leads me to a bigger and more important reason for these changes: Creo en el pueblo Cubano. I believe in the Cuban people. This is not just a policy of normalizing relations with the Cuban government. The United States of America is normalizing relations with the Cuban people.”

“And today, I want to share with you my vision of what our future can be. I want the Cuban people — especially the young people — to understand why I believe that you should look to the future with hope; not the false promise which insists that things are better than they really are, or the blind optimism that says all your problems can go away tomorrow. Hope that is rooted in the future that you can choose and that you can shape, and that you can build for your country.”

“I’m hopeful because I believe that the Cuban people are as innovative as any people in the world.”

“In a global economy, powered by ideas and information, a country’s greatest asset is its people. In the United States, we have a clear monument to what the Cuban people can build: it’s called Miami. Here in Havana, we see that same talent in cuentapropistas [self-employed workers], cooperatives and old cars that still run. El Cubano inventa del aire. [Cubans invented the air.]”

“Cuba has an extraordinary resource — a system of education which values every boy and every girl. And in recent years, the Cuban government has begun to open up to the world, and to open up more space for that talent to thrive. In just a few years, we’ve seen how cuentapropistas can succeed while sustaining a distinctly Cuban spirit. Being self-employed is not about becoming more like America, it’s about being yourself.”

“Look at Sandra Lidice Aldama, who chose to start a small business. Cubans, she said, can ‘innovate and adapt without losing our identity…our secret is in not copying or imitating but simply being ourselves.’”

“Look at Papito Valladeres, a barber, whose success allowed him to improve conditions in his neighborhood. ‘I realize I’m not going to solve all of the world’s problems,’ he said. ‘But if I can solve problems in the little piece of the world where I live, it can ripple across Havana.’”

“That’s where hope begins — with the ability to earn your own living, and to build something you can be proud of. That’s why our policies focus on supporting Cubans, instead of hurting them. That’s why we got rid of limits on remittances — so ordinary Cubans have more resources. That’s why we’re encouraging travel — which will build bridges between our people, and bring more revenue to those Cuban small businesses. That’s why we’ve opened up space for commerce and exchanges — so that Americans and Cubans can work together to find cures for diseases, and create jobs, and open the door to more opportunity for the Cuban people.”

“As President of the United States, I’ve called on our Congress to lift the embargo. It is an outdated burden on the Cuban people. It’s a burden on the Americans who want to work and do business or invest here in Cuba. It’s time to lift the embargo. But even if we lifted the embargo tomorrow, Cubans would not realize their potential without continued change here in Cuba. It should be easier to open a business here in Cuba. A worker should be able to get a job directly with companies who invest here in Cuba. Two currencies shouldn’t separate the type of salaries that Cubans can earn. The Internet should be available across the island, so that Cubans can connect to the wider world and to one of the greatest engines of growth in human history.”

“There’s no limitation from the United States on the ability of Cuba to take these steps. It’s up to you. And I can tell you as a friend that sustainable prosperity in the 21st century depends upon education, health care, and environmental protection. But it also depends on the free and open exchange of ideas. If you can’t access information online, if you cannot be exposed to different points of view, you will not reach your full potential. And over time, the youth will lose hope.”

“I know these issues are sensitive, especially coming from an American President. Before 1959, some Americans saw Cuba as something to exploit, ignored poverty, enabled corruption. And since 1959, we’ve been shadow-boxers in this battle of geopolitics and personalities. I know the history, but I refuse to be trapped by it.”

“I’ve made it clear that the United States has neither the capacity, nor the intention to impose change on Cuba. What changes come will depend upon the Cuban people. We will not impose our political or economic system on you. We recognize that every country, every people, must chart its own course and shape its own model. But having removed the shadow of history from our relationship, I must speak honestly about the things that I believe — the things that we, as Americans, believe. As Marti said, ‘Liberty is the right of every man to be honest, to think and to speak without hypocrisy.’”

“So let me tell you what I believe. I can’t force you to agree, but you should know what I think. I believe that every person should be equal under the law. Every child deserves the dignity that comes with education, and health care and food on the table and a roof over their heads. I believe citizens should be free to speak their mind without fear, to organize, and to criticize their government, and to protest peacefully, and that the rule of law should not include arbitrary detentions of people who exercise those rights. I believe that every person should have the freedom to practice their faith peacefully and publicly. And, yes, I believe voters should be able to choose their governments in free and democratic elections.”

“Not everybody agrees with me on this. Not everybody agrees with the American people on this. But I believe those human rights are universal. I believe they are the rights of the American people, the Cuban people, and people around the world.”

“Now, there’s no secret that our governments disagree on many of these issues. I’ve had frank conversations with President Castro. For many years, he has pointed out the flaws in the American system — economic inequality; the death penalty; racial discrimination; wars abroad. That’s just a sample. He has a much longer list. But here’s what the Cuban people need to understand: I welcome this open debate and dialogue. It’s good. It’s healthy. I’m not afraid of it.”

“We do have too much money in American politics. But, in America, it’s still possible for somebody like me — a child who was raised by a single mom, a child of mixed race who did not have a lot of money — to pursue and achieve the highest office in the land. That’s what’s possible in America.”

“We do have challenges with racial bias — in our communities, in our criminal justice system, in our society — the legacy of slavery and segregation. But the fact that we have open debates within America’s own democracy is what allows us to get better. In 1959, the year that my father moved to America, it was illegal for him to marry my mother, who was white, in many American states. When I first started school, we were still struggling to desegregate schools across the American South. But people organized; they protested; they debated these issues; they challenged government officials. And because of those protests, and because of those debates, and because of popular mobilization, I’m able to stand here today as an African-American and as President of the United States. That was because of the freedoms that were afforded in the United States that we were able to bring about change.”

“I’m not saying this is easy. There’s still enormous problems in our society. But democracy is the way that we solve them. That’s how we got health care for more of our people. That’s how we made enormous gains in women’s rights and gay rights. That’s how we address the inequality that concentrates so much wealth at the top of our society. Because workers can organize and ordinary people have a voice, American democracy has given our people the opportunity to pursue their dreams and enjoy a high standard of living.”

“Now, there are still some tough fights. It isn’t always pretty, the process of democracy. It’s often frustrating. You can see that in the election going on back home. But just stop and consider this fact about the American campaign that’s taking place right now. You had two Cuban Americans in the Republican Party, running against the legacy of a black man who is President, while arguing that they’re the best person to beat the Democratic nominee who will either be a woman or a Democratic Socialist. Who would have believed that back in 1959? That’s a measure of our progress as a democracy.”

“So here’s my message to the Cuban government and the Cuban people: The ideals that are the starting point for every revolution — America’s revolution, Cuba’s revolution, the liberation movements around the world — those ideals find their truest expression, I believe, in democracy. Not because American democracy is perfect, but precisely because we’re not. And we — like every country — need the space that democracy gives us to change. It gives individuals the capacity to be catalysts to think in new ways, and to reimagine how our society should be, and to make them better.”

“There’s already an evolution taking place inside of Cuba, a generational change. Many suggested that I come here and ask the people of Cuba to tear something down — but I’m appealing to the young people of Cuba who will lift something up, build something new. El futuro de Cuba tiene que estar en las manos del pueblo Cubano. [The future of Cuba must be in the hands of the Cuban people.]”

English “And to President Castro — who I appreciate being here today — I want you to know, I believe my visit here demonstrates you do not need to fear a threat from the United States. And given your commitment to Cuba’s sovereignty and self-determination, I am also confident that you need not fear the different voices of the Cuban people — and their capacity to speak, and assemble, and vote for their leaders. In fact, I’m hopeful for the future because I trust that the Cuban people will make the right decisions.”

“And as you do, I’m also confident that Cuba can continue to play an important role in the hemisphere and around the globe — and my hope is, is that you can do so as a partner with the United States.”

“We’ve played very different roles in the world. But no one should deny the service that thousands of Cuban doctors have delivered for the poor and suffering. Last year, American health care workers — and the U.S. military — worked side-by-side with Cubans to save lives and stamp out Ebola in West Africa. I believe that we should continue that kind of cooperation in other countries.”

“We’ve been on the different side of so many conflicts in the Americas. But today, Americans and Cubans are sitting together at the negotiating table, and we are helping the Colombian people resolve a civil war that’s dragged on for decades. That kind of cooperation is good for everybody. It gives everyone in this hemisphere hope.”

“We took different journeys to our support for the people of South Africa in ending apartheid. But President Castro and I could both be there in Johannesburg to pay tribute to the legacy of the great Nelson Mandela. And in examining his life and his words, I’m sure we both realize we have more work to do to promote equality in our own countries — to reduce discrimination based on race in our own countries. And in Cuba, we want our engagement to help lift up the Cubans who are of African descent, who’ve proven that there’s nothing they cannot achieve when given the chance.”

“We’ve been a part of different blocs of nations in the hemisphere, and we will continue to have profound differences about how to promote peace, security, opportunity, and human rights. But as we normalize our relations, I believe it can help foster a greater sense of unity in the Americas — todos somos Americanos [we are all Americans].”

“From the beginning of my time in office, I’ve urged the people of the Americas to leave behind the ideological battles of the past. We are in a new era. I know that many of the issues that I’ve talked about lack the drama of the past. And I know that part of Cuba’s identity is its pride in being a small island nation that could stand up for its rights, and shake the world. But I also know that Cuba will always stand out because of the talent, hard work, and pride of the Cuban people. That’s your strength. Cuba doesn’t have to be defined by being against the United States, any more than the United States should be defined by being against Cuba. I’m hopeful for the future because of the reconciliation that’s taking place among the Cuban people.”

“I know that for some Cubans on the island, there may be a sense that those who left somehow supported the old order in Cuba. I’m sure there’s a narrative that lingers here which suggests that Cuban exiles ignored the problems of pre-Revolutionary Cuba, and rejected the struggle to build a new future. But I can tell you today that so many Cuban exiles carry a memory of painful — and sometimes violent — separation. They love Cuba. A part of them still considers this their true home. That’s why their passion is so strong. That’s why their heartache is so great. And for the Cuban-American community that I’ve come to know and respect, this is not just about politics. This is about family — the memory of a home that was lost; the desire to rebuild a broken bond; the hope for a better future the hope for return and reconciliation.”

“For all of the politics, people are people, and Cubans are Cubans. And I’ve come here — I’ve traveled this distance — on a bridge that was built by Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits. I first got to know the talent and passion of the Cuban people in America. And I know how they have suffered more than the pain of exile — they also know what it’s like to be an outsider, and to struggle, and to work harder to make sure their children can reach higher in America.”

“So the reconciliation of the Cuban people — the children and grandchildren of revolution, and the children and grandchildren of exile — that is fundamental to Cuba’s future.”

“You see it in Gloria Gonzalez, who traveled here in 2013 for the first time after 61 years of separation, and was met by her sister, Llorca. ‘You recognized me, but I didn’t recognize you,’ Gloria said after she embraced her sibling. Imagine that, after 61 years.”

“You see it in Melinda Lopez, who came to her family’s old home. And as she was walking the streets, an elderly woman recognized her as her mother’s daughter, and began to cry. She took her into her home and showed her a pile of photos that included Melinda’s baby picture, which her mother had sent 50 years ago. Melinda later said, ‘So many of us are now getting so much back.’”

“You see it in Cristian Miguel Soler, a young man who became the first of his family to travel here after 50 years. And meeting relatives for the first time, he said, ‘I realized that family is family no matter the distance between us.’”

“Sometimes the most important changes start in small places. The tides of history can leave people in conflict and exile and poverty. It takes time for those circumstances to change. But the recognition of a common humanity, the reconciliation of people bound by blood and a belief in one another — that’s where progress begins. Understanding, and listening, and forgiveness. And if the Cuban people face the future together, it will be more likely that the young people of today will be able to live with dignity and achieve their dreams right here in Cuba.”

“The history of the United States and Cuba encompass revolution and conflict; struggle and sacrifice; retribution and, now, reconciliation. It is time, now, for us to leave the past behind. It is time for us to look forward to the future together — un future de esperanza [a future of hope]. And it won’t be easy, and there will be setbacks. It will take time. But my time here in Cuba renews my hope and my confidence in what the Cuban people will do. We can make this journey as friends, and as neighbors, and as family — together. Si se puede. Muchas gracias. [Yes we can. Many thanks.]”